Sleeping Bear Dunes wilderness bill heads to Obama

Congress has given final approval to a bill designating 32,000 acres of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as wilderness. With U.S. House passage of the bill, it now heads to President Barack Obama for signature. The U.S. Senate passed it in June 2013. The lakeshore is headquartered in Empire in the northwestern Lower Peninsula. Hunting and fishing would be permitted in the wilderness areas. More than 1.4 million people visited Sleeping Bear Dunes in 2011, pumping about $120 million into the local economy. Democratic Michigan U.S. Senator Carl Levin said Tuesday that the bill's passage "is good news for all of us who cherish the matchless beauty and the ecological importance of Sleeping Bear Dunes."